


Upon A Midnight Clear

by victorine



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Christmas Eve, Episode: s03e07 Digestivo, Fate and Circumstance, First Kiss, M/M, Magic, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Teen Hannibal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-03 03:09:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17275961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/victorine/pseuds/victorine
Summary: On the night before Christmas, Hannibal Lecter sneaks out of the orphanage into the snow-covered forest, meaning to return to the place where his sister died. On the way, he meets with a creature: a gigantic feathered stag, which offers him a gift. Little does young Hannibal know, it’s an encounter that will guide the direction of his life - especially when it comes to a man called Will Graham...





	Upon A Midnight Clear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TigerPrawn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigerPrawn/gifts), [TCbook](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TCbook/gifts), [HotMolasses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HotMolasses/gifts), [slashyrogue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/slashyrogue/gifts), [ThisIsMyDesignHannibal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisIsMyDesignHannibal/gifts), [wraithsonwings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wraithsonwings/gifts), [fragile-teacup (Mrs_Gene_Hunt)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mrs_Gene_Hunt/gifts), [TheSilverQueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSilverQueen/gifts), [purefoysgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/purefoysgirl/gifts), [Devereauxs_Disease](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Devereauxs_Disease/gifts), [DrJLecter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrJLecter/gifts), [RedFive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedFive/gifts), [Kateera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kateera/gifts), [Zigzagwanderer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zigzagwanderer/gifts), [Pragnificent (PragmaticHominid)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PragmaticHominid/gifts), [stratumgermanitivum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stratumgermanitivum/gifts).



> So, this was supposed to be my Christmas present to my lovely friends and to the amazing Hannibal fandom in general. Unfortunately, Life rather ruined my plans this year, and I’m now very late posting this, but I didn’t want to wait a whole year, so I’m posting it now. Merry (belated) Christmas, my dear fannibals, and the happiest, hannigrammiest of New Years <3<3<3

_Christmas Eve, 1979, Lithuania_

There are dark things in the forest. The shimmering carapace of snow on the frigid ground does nothing to brighten them, its moonlight glitter swallowed into the sharp, ravenous black. The dark things deaden the light.

Among them this night slips a young man. A boy still, in truth, but already he belongs with the wicked and wayward. He finds his way between the trees easily, with practiced steps born of familiarity, no fear of falling or freezing. Nor of being pursued – he will not be missed until morning and plans to be back in his meagre bed long before then. This is not a night for escape, only for remembrance, and the renewal of certain vows which this boy holds as his only comfort, warming himself with thoughts of blood and brutality yet to be delivered.

One day, Hannibal Lecter will surpass every shadowy creature that stalks this forest. One day, this silent cub will bleed the world with a single flick of his claws.

But not tonight.

Tonight he makes barely a mark upon the world – even his feet leave only the faintest of traces, his slight frame skimming above the snow without time to sink into it. Gravity, it seems, can do as much to hold Hannibal Lecter as the walls of the orphanage (or those of a gilded cage, on some day yet to come).

It seems for a while as if the boy will take flight, run past his intended destination and keep going until the forest ends and the world opens up to him. _Something_ stops him though, finally. One moment he is composed entirely of motion, the next he is stillness itself, not a flicker of muscle nor breath to be found. That _something_ is moving though, surfacing from the night like a great ship, stately and immense. Hannibal’s eyes raise and raise again, as the creature advances upon him, seeming to take up the whole of the boy’s vision, obliterating all that surrounds them.

Before him stands an enormous stag, dark as the heavens and gleaming with iridescence. No, not gleaming exactly, Hannibal reflects, for the light does not seem to bounce off the creature, but rather slides slick across it, viscous and frictionless. Streaks of gold and petrol blue warp and weft across its hide like shot silk, and Hannibal can see now that its fur is interspersed with feathers that rustle and twitch as it bows its head to the ground and then straightens to regard him expectantly.

Hannibal, having been brought up properly, does not hesitate to return the gesture.

He seems utterly unfazed by the appearance of the great beast, regarding it with a placid curiosity as he straightens from his own bow. His eyes do widen a little, though, when the stag opens its mouth and, in a voice that tolls like a weary bell, addresses the young traveller.

“Few would dare to enter this place on such a night, fledgling. What brings you forth, into the cold?”

“I have business in the woods tonight, and no time for interruptions,” Hannibal replies. His voice is raw, rusty from disuse, and deeper than he recalls the last time he heard it.

The stag tilts its head. “You have no curiosity for the wonders the world puts before you?”

“The world took my family. The world may burn.”

“You are young for a pilgrim,” the stag opines.

“Age is not a barrier to purpose.” Hannibal takes a step forward.

“Nor to pain.”

“No.” The word hangs in the air, as if it does not carry the weight of Hannibal’s life within it.

The boy and the stag breathe together, fogging the air with plumes of white.

Presently Hannibal, growing impatient, breaks the silence. “Is there a reason you stopped me, or do you merely enjoy making a nuisance of yourself?”

“What would you say if I offered you something other than pain?”

“I would say nothing, which is all such an offer deserves.”

The stag shakes its great head a little, in amusement or offence, Hannibal neither knows nor cares. “We shall see,” it pronounces, in its rolling chime of a voice. “I offer you a choice, boy, and whatever you choose, I promise it will be yours before the New Year dawns.”

Hannibal sneers. “You can offer nothing I want.”

“Do not judge before you have all the facts, fledgling. The wise man waits, and learns all he can before he acts.”

Hannibal has had enough. He cares not for magic or miracles, only for the promise he must not break. He takes a step, meaning to brush past the stag and continue on his way, but before he can take a second, the beast stamps its hoof and lowers its antlers. It is barely a threat, more a warning, but the power of the creature is unmistakable and Hannibal subsides, recognising the superior predator.

The stag relents, raising its head in order to address Hannibal once more. “You have lost much in your short life, Hannibal Lecter. I offer you a chance to regain some of what has been taken from you.”

Hannibal’s eyes widen for the second time that night. For a moment he is mute again, his racing mind stoppering his voice. Then, he approaches the stag with quick, sliding steps and, in barely more than a whisper, asks, “Mischa?”

The stag lowers its great head until it is level with Hannibal’s. Its lightless eyes are deep with sorrow and it lets out a long breath before it speaks. “I am sorry, fledgling. The dead lie beyond my grasp. We can neither of us reach her.”

Hannibal feels the hole in his being, as black-edged and heavy as the first day without her, and anger burns cold down his spine. “Then what use are you to me?” he hisses.

“You find yourself alone in a cage, boy, without hope of freedom or love. One of these I can restore to you, but only one. Which will you choose, fledgling?”

“Freedom.” Hannibal has no need to think about it.

“So certain?” the stag asks, as if to give Hannibal a chance to change his mind. He has no need of that either.

“Only a fool would choose otherwise. If I must accept something in order to be rid of you, then I claim my freedom.”

The stag inclines its head, accepting Hannibal’s choice. “If that is your wish, so it shall be.”

“It is,” Hannibal insists. “Love makes one weak. I’ll not be made so again.”

The stag gives a huff, as if amused. “Youth and arrogance so happily go hand in hand. Yet I see a moment in your future, Hannibal Lecter, where you will face this choice once again. You would do well to remember this meeting then, it may guide your course when all hope seems to have abandoned you.”

The stag turns then, and slides oil-slick into the dark. Hannibal regards the space where it had been for a little while, and then forges on, to Mischa, to the place where she fell, so that he may greet Christmas morning with her once again.

Exactly a week later, a man in an expensive car appears at the orphanage to claim Hannibal as his kin. Robert bears no physical resemblance to Hannibal’s father, but speaks about him in such a way as Hannibal believes – _knows_ – only a sibling could. He corroborates his uncle’s story with no hesitation and is quickly dispatched to gather his belongings, such as they are, so that they may begin the long trip back to Paris, where Robert’s home is. As he goes, Hannibal notices a slight, doe-eyed girl detach herself from the shadows behind Robert and follow him to his room. This, he is informed when he looks back to Robert, is Chiyoh, handmaiden to Robert’s wife, who has been brought along on this journey as it was felt that Hannibal might be more comfortable with someone closer to his own age.

She is quick-eyed, agile, and almost as silent as Hannibal. She will be his ally, he decides, and allows her to aid him as he packs his threadbare things into the incongruously luxurious bag he has been provided. When they descend downstairs, he notes that she places herself between him and Robert and allows this too, seeing a thread of protectiveness in her he can spin into a web of loyalty. He suspects, from the way Robert eyes him suspiciously, it may be of use.

At first, when Hannibal arrives in Paris, he is angered, believing himself cheated by a lying, manipulative spirit. This is not freedom, this new life, with its high walls and endless schoolwork and constant stream of people _demanding_ Hannibal’s attention. And yet… after a while, he discerns the shape of what freedom might be, and better still, how this life will provide him the tools to enjoy it. He will become educated, cultured, refined. He will learn how to make people love him so that they will never suspect what he is until his hands are already around their necks, snapping and twisting the life from them.

The stag’s promise holds true in another regard too. There is no love here. Not in Robert. Not in Chiyoh, who regards Hannibal with wary interest and unswaying loyalty, but bears no affection for him. Not even in Murasaki, whose cold glamour fascinates Hannibal but who keeps him at arm’s length, as if instinctively aware of what he is.

It is no matter. Hannibal has no need of love and its distractions.

 

* * *

 

_Winter, 2015, Wolf Trap_

_I miss my dogs. I'm not going to miss you. I'm not going to find you. I'm not going to look for you. I don't want to know where you are or what you do. I don't want to think about you anymore._

Hannibal cannot seem to leave. He walked out of Will’s front door with every intention of departure, of seeking a new direction as he had so many times before. Instead, his feet carried him along a well-worn path around Will’s house, past the barn where Will had “killed” Freddie Lounds, and to the small stream that runs just out of sight of Will’s windows. A desire-line between Hannibal and the place where he has left his heart.

When Hannibal walked out of his own home, leaving Will bleeding on his kitchen floor, he felt no hesitation. Behind him, his carefully constructed life lay in glimmering fragments but there was no tug of nostalgia or regret holding him back. It was his desire to leave, and so he did, striding easily into a new life, a new game, a new version of himself.

Now though, he cannot seem to find the same confidence of purpose. He knows he must leave, no other option is open to him, but still he lingers, braced on the edge of Will’s territory, unable to see the way forward. He sinks onto a tree stump and takes a moment to survey the land around him – he will imagine Will here often, he knows, windswept and pink-cheeked in his natural habitat, surrounded by his pack. His little family, his little boat on the water. Why is it that Will sets such store in a small life?

In his peripheral vision, he sees Chiyoh approach. Her steps are soft and slow in the long grass, and her hair has a blue-gold gloss in the harsh winter light. It matches the glint of gunmetal against her shoulder.

He chose well, all those years ago, when he marked her as his ally. Of all those people Hannibal has allowed some purchase in his life, she is perhaps the only one never to have disappointed. Her loyalty has never wavered. She stands by him now, both physically and symbolically, and regards him without pity, for which he is grateful.

“What will you do now?” she asks.

“I will leave.” He tries to inject something like boredom into his voice. Disinterest. He thinks he succeeds, enough for Chiyoh. (It wouldn’t have fooled Will, never Will.) “Find some new place, begin again.”

“Reinvention.”

“Life is a series of reinventions, rarely within our control. It will not be a hardship.”

“And yet still you remain, within earshot, in case your master should call you back home.” Her flat tone doesn’t sharpen but the blow lands regardless, buried between Hannibal’s ribs.

Hannibal wonders how delicately her neck would snap. Or perhaps he would use a knife, split her flesh the way he did Abigail’s. Some pleasing symmetry there. (Will would be appalled, though not as much as he would prefer to be.)

Chiyoh continues, probably not oblivious to Hannibal’s murderous imaginings, but unmoved by them. “You have a choice to make, Hannibal Lecter. You are bound by indecision – you will only know your direction when you have made your choice.”

He scoops a stone from beside his foot and contemplates it a second before tossing it into the water. It sinks without trace, save for the languid ripples of its impact. “No choices are left to me in this life. They have all been made for me.”

“There is always a choice, Hannibal.”

“Between iron and silver?”

“Between freedom and love.”

A breath escapes him, a puff of white rising skywards, and in it Hannibal sees the shape of the stag, and the shape of his future. He feels a smile stretch his lips, rueful and wry, and turns it to Chiyoh.

“What?” she asks, tone flat but her eyes curious.

“You’re not the first to present such a choice to me.”

“Oh no? How did you choose that time?”

“I think you know.”

She grants a smile, a tiny, fleeting thing, and then looks past him, back towards Will’s house. “And how will you choose now?”

Hannibal smiles too. He doesn’t bother looking back to the house, he’ll be seeing it again soon. Just as soon as Jack and his attack dogs show themselves.

 

* * *

 

_Christmas Eve, 2018, Someplace Far Away_

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“There is such a thing as too many patterns in a single outfit.”

Hannibal tries for aloof and unamused in response to Will’s flippancy, but misses the mark by quite some distance, hitting fond and indulgent instead. He seems to have quite lost his formerly supreme mastery of his facial expressions since the advent of Will’s daily presence in his life.

Will lolls in his seat, highly entertained by his own wit, grinning up at Hannibal delightedly. He’s draped himself over both armrests, sleepy and warm with the fire’s heat licking over his skin, and so his feet dangle next to Hannibal’s hand where it lays on his own armrest, ankles temptingly exposed. Hannibal would like very much to wrap his hand around one and rub his thumb gently against Will’s ankle bone. He weighs up the probability of such an action causing Will to flee the room, and decides that, given his companion’s smiling, easy air tonight, it is worth the risk.

Will does, admittedly, tense up a little at the contact, but he settles quickly enough, leaning back into his seat and closing his eyes. Hannibal lets the conversation lull for the moment, content with the possessiveness he feels in having a hold on his ever-slippery empath. His thumb moves in gentle circles, soothing and steady, and he is almost convinced from Will’s sleepy scent that he has dropped off, but then Will – without opening his eyes – says, in a dreamy tone of voice:

“Did I ever tell you about the Ravenstag?”

Hannibal nearly chokes.

After a drawn-out moment with no response, Will cracks an eye open and peers at Hannibal. But by now Hannibal has had enough time to compose himself and merely presents Will with a curious expression.

Will, Hannibal suspects, is not fooled for a second, but evidently decides not to push. “I’m guessing from that expression that I didn’t.”

Hannibal inclines his head, tight grip on his expressions re-established. He can’t give anything away yet. Not until he’s sure. But the image of a night sky eaten up by endless blue and gold is vivid in his mind. “Not that I can recall,” he concedes.

Will closes his eye back up and wriggles around, apparently attempting to find the best position for storytelling. He is careful though, Hannibal notices, not to pull his ankle out of his grasp. For his own part, Hannibal is working hard to give no sign of the swooping feeling in his stomach, the rising anticipation that’s making him lightheaded. He keeps his hold on Will’s ankle light, despite the sudden, intense need to clutch at him, to keep him moored as though he might dissipate, a fever-dream all along.

“All right,” Will says, entirely oblivious to Hannibal’s inner turmoil, settling an arm casually behind his head, “remember when you were attempting to cook my brain _without_ removing it from my head?”

As if Hannibal could forget. He still thinks of that Will sometimes, fragile and beautiful, sheened in sweat and desperation, propelled by stubborn purpose to keep standing when he should, by rights, have long been laid low. That Will who trusted him blindly, such a contrast to the one who sits contentedly by him now, unafraid and understanding, his trust hard won and paid for in blood, and achingly, unbelievably real.

“Vividly,” he says smoothly, and is rewarded with a cocked eyebrow and a smirk.

“And you know that one of the fun side-effects was my brain springing all kinds of visual hallucinations on me.”

“Yes. You told me once of a man with ink-black flesh and towering antlers. The image stayed with me long after the conversation – I attempted to recreate it on the page but to no avail.”

“I would’ve been interested to see those – they would have been self-portraits, after all.”

Hannibal raises an eyebrow. He’s not exactly _surprised_ by this revelation – he had long since put together the connection between the image of a Wendigo and his own proclivities – but it tugs at something inside to have it confirmed, how deeply he had resonated in Will’s mind, and how elegantly Will’s subconscious had tried to alert him to the danger he faced.

“They are sadly lost to the bowels of the FBI, those that did not burn in the flames of Alana’s frustration.”

Will opens his eyes and lifts his head to look at Hannibal thoughtfully. “Could you do more?”

“Would you like that?”

Will’s eyes flicker away from Hannibal’s and he stares into the fire. Eventually, he finds an answer amongst the flames. “I think… yes. I would. It’s always interesting to have you show me the inside of my own head. Not literally, I hasten to add,” he grins.

That Will can joke about that terrible day in Florence seems nothing short of miraculous to Hannibal, and he is glad, for once, that Will’s eyes are denied to him at the moment. He’s fairly sure of what is showing on his face and Will is not yet comfortable with displays of naked devotion. Especially ones associated with Hannibal’s occasional attempts to murder him.

“Anyway.” Will’s voice interrupts Hannibal’s thoughts and he returns his full attention to him and the far more pressing issue at hand. “This was supposed to be something you don’t already know about.”

“Yes, your ‘Ravenstag’,” Hannibal says, making the quotation marks audible, as if he’s never heard of such a thing.

Will eyes close again, as if he needs to look into the dark to find the memory. “I only started seeing it after I met you. After your little piece of field theatre back in Minnesota.” There’s a subtle bite to Will’s words, and Hannibal wonders if he is thinking of Abigail, or of the young woman he killed as his first gift to Will. That he has killed young women is a sore point between them, though Hannibal can’t understand Will’s belief that the entire category should be protected, as if every female under twenty-one is an innocent. Still so given to bursts of nonsensical morality, his Will. He keeps these thoughts to himself, though, unwilling to divert Will from his tale.

“After that, it kept turning up. This immense beast, like something out of a nightmare, fur the blue-black of the night sky and rippling with feathers. Followed me everywhere. In Abigail’s hospital room, in my classroom, at crime scenes. It was with me in my dreams, with me when I sleepwalked…” Will trails off. Hannibal sees the tick in his jaw as Will struggles with some deep-seated memory, and knows with a flash of shared consciousness what image Will is revisiting.

“It was with you and Abigail while she died on my kitchen floor.” He says it without inflection, impassive, aware that he has no right to the pain that flares within his chest.

“It was dying too,” Will whispers. “I liked to think it went with her, wherever she went after. Looked out for her. Maybe it did, for a while.”

“It came back?”

“Eventually. Needed a friendly face after your Girl Friday tipped me off that train.”

Chiyoh. How interesting. “And was it? Friendly?”

Will takes a moment to consider this. “Not, not friendly,” he says eventually, drawing the words out thoughtfully. “But… safe. It was with me so often it became almost more a comfort than anything else.”

“Another member of your pack.”

Will smiles wryly, accepting the idea. “Yeah, I guess it was.” He opens his eyes and finds Hannibal’s, stares into them. “I probably should have been scared of it, but it never occurred to me to be so.”

Hannibal understands. He supposes he should have been scared of Will too, as much as he is capable of fear. And he is, in fact, a little frightened of how Will might react to what he has to say next.

First, though, a question.

“Did it ever speak to you, this apparition?”

Will looks surprised, the inquiry obviously not what he had been anticipating. “No, no speech. I don’t think it could. It just, you know, _loomed_. Occasionally burst into flames.”

“Into…” Hannibal lets the question die on his lips. Later, he will ask for details later.

He hesitates, wondering if perhaps this is all a mere coincidence. Why would it speak to Hannibal and not to Will, after all? And yet… the image Will conjured was so precise a match for the one in Hannibal’s mind. And then there is the fact that it appeared to Will just after his encounter with Chiyoh, just as Chiyoh had once appeared in Hannibal’s life after his meeting with the stag.

“Will,” Hannibal says carefully, forcing himself past his doubts, “I am aware that you have no reason to believe what I am about to tell you, but I would ask that you allow me to finish before you make any judgements.”

“Sounds ominous.”

“Will, please.”

Will regards Hannibal, with the look that means he is carefully reading every line and curve of his face and distilling his innermost thoughts from them.

“All right, no talking, I swear.”

Hannibal takes a breath, suffused with relief. “Thank you, Will,” he says, to which Will only nods in acknowledgement, his face half-amused, half-intrigued.

“It was a Christmas Eve just like this,” Hannibal begins, “when I was but a boy, still living in the orphanage, without hope of release. Just before midnight I snuck out, determined to find the spot where Mischa and I spent our last happy moments together.”

Will doesn’t make a sound, as he had promised, but Hannibal feels him shift in his seat, and then a warm hand covers his own and holds tight.

“I was waylaid on my journey,” Hannibal continues, “by a creature whose appearance I can neither explain nor fathom. The same creature you just described to me, Will. Your Ravenstag.”

Will’s eyes are wide but still he says not a word.

“There is an old belief in my homeland, that when midnight strikes on the night before Christmas, animals gain the power of speech. And so the stag spoke to me.

“It offered me a choice, to gain my freedom or to have love return to my life. With all the arrogance of youth and the anger born of my grief, I chose the former without hesitation or thought. And so it granted me deliverance from my prison, into a life free of attachment or desire.”

Slowly, so slowly, Hannibal slips from his seat and to his knees beside Will.

“Until I met you, mylimasis. And I learned to make a different choice.”

Will waits, lets the silence between them draw out until it is clear Hannibal’s tale is done. “Did you ever see it again?” he asks, apparently willing to believe the impossible thing Hannibal has just told him without question.

“Never.” Hannibal shakes his head. He thinks of Chiyoh, though, that afternoon behind Will’s house, and wonders.

Will leans forward, both hands grasping Hannibal’s now, and lays their foreheads together. “What does it mean?” he breathes.

“I don’t know. Perhaps that fate has had plans for us all our lives.”

“What kind of universe would want us together?” Will asks, a plea in his voice.

“One to which I owe my eternal gratitude.”

Will’s blush is almost hidden by the firelight and the cynical expression he hastily draws across his face like a veil as he draws back from Hannibal again. They stay like that quietly for a while longer, and eventually Hannibal reluctantly accepts that the conversation is likely done for tonight. Then Will lets out a little huff of amusement, and looks down at Hannibal, still kneeling before him.

“Maybe they figured that we’d spend so much time trying to kill each other, the net killing rate would drop.”

“I believe there was an error in their calculations, in that case,” Hannibal says drily, pulling a begrudging but genuine smile from Will. “Though, I must give credit to the fates – they conjured the only creature who could possibly have distracted me from my purpose. It has been quite difficult to concentrate on anything but you since the first moment you growled at me in Jack’s office, dear Will.” As he says this, Hannibal reaches a hand up to Will’s cheek and cradles his face gently, caressing it exactly the way he did all those years ago in his kitchen. He can see the moment memories of that night in Baltimore flash through Will’s eyes, and the one when Will banishes them to the past, his eyes softening, his shoulders relaxing.

There is rarely a moment when Hannibal doesn’t want to kiss Will – that desire does not waver in the face of petulance or cruelty. It is simply an essential part of Hannibal’s being. _This_ moment, though, has a ring of inevitability to it, as if it is the one each of those other moments has been building inexorably towards. But, as it turns out, it is not Hannibal who acts upon it, frozen as he is with the pressure of a fated moment suddenly upon him.

Instead it is Will, laughing as always in the face of fate, who seals their lips together with all the ease of saying hello.

Will’s mouth is warm and insistent, and Hannibal yields easily to it, lips parting to allow Will inside. The approving hum Will gives in response lights up every nerve in Hannibal’s body and he surges upwards, pressing Will back into his chair, straddling his lap and gripping at his hair. Hannibal feels Will’s hands slide round to cup his ass in response, and then they’re pressing desperately against each other, as if they could merge into one and never be parted again.

It’s several minutes before they do part, and then only because breathing is an inescapable inconvenience. They stare at each other, giddy and panting, and can’t help but continue to trade more kisses, smaller ones, clinging and tender and wonderful. Finally, Will lays his brow against Hannibal’s once again, and gazes at him as their breath mingles. He smiles.

“Eternal gratitude, huh?”

“Even longer, perhaps,” Hannibal muses, and then pulls Will down in front of the fire in order to prove it.

Later, when they lie tangled together, sated if only for the moment, Hannibal looks up at the window. He suspects that if he ventured out into the cold just now, he would encounter a gigantic stag with the night sky for a coat and some words for him on the subject of hasty choices. Or, perhaps, just a small Japanese woman with a “told-you-so” expression on her face. He’s not minded to find out, though, not when Will is warm and solid against him, and their clinging fingers are writing vows for the future against each other’s flesh. Perhaps sometime in the future they will have to choose again between love and freedom, but on this Christmas Eve, Will and Hannibal have both. They have them in each other. And it will certainly take a force greater than the one that brought them together to take that from them.

Outside, the small figure of a woman gazes at the couple within, and pities anybody who tries to put them asunder. And then she turns back into the night, and melts, with a blue-gold flash, into its blackness.

There are dark things in the forest, and neither the glow of the moon, nor the sparkle of frost can touch them. But every now and then, when the opportunity presents itself, they take the darkness and, from it, they make their own source of light.

**Author's Note:**

> In researching Lithuanian Christmas traditions for this fic, I came across the belief that Hannibal mentions, that animals gain the power of speech around midnight on Christmas Eve and may tell you your future. I added the bit about granting wishes though, and didn’t mention that hearing an animal talk at this time is believed to doom one to death because it would have interfered with my murder husbandly agenda!
> 
> You can still find me over on tumblr, but I’m also on twitter (though not actively) and [pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/victorine) if you prefer <3<3<3


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